Hybrids in Vanilla

Back in the days of old, when 'Hybrid' classes only had one intended role (Paladins / priests / druids / shamans as healers, warriors as tanks etc) playing another spec was pretty uncommon. I raided in a 40 man guild as a hunter, and nearly all the dps were pure dps classes, we did have a couple of shadow priests if i remember right, but that was about it.

So my question is, did any of you guys raid as an uncommon spec for your class at level 60 back in vanilla, and what was it like to play back then?

I leveled my druid as a mix of feral and balance and sometimes restoration. Mostly because I was clueless. It didn't go very fast.
My first priest I leveled as shadow from 40 to 60. I remember around level 45(I think) being on that island in Feralas, it went horribly slow.

I leveled my druid as a mix of feral and balance and sometimes restoration. Mostly because I was clueless. It didn't go very fast.
My first priest I leveled as shadow from 40 to 60. I remember around level 45(I think) being on that island in Feralas, it went horribly slow.

Mostly healed, but did some off tanking as prot when we needed crazy amounts of tanks for some fights. But that was rare since we seemed to have 20 warriors all the time.

I leveled my druid as a mix of feral and balance and sometimes restoration. Mostly because I was clueless. It didn't go very fast.
My first priest I leveled as shadow from 40 to 60. I remember around level 45(I think) being on that island in Feralas, it went horribly slow.

I think I had 30/21 elemental spec and healed almost till Nefarian. I'm pretty sure we had DPS warriors in raids and one enhance shaman with sulfuras.

What I remember mostly from Vanilla was people healing while being DPS spec. I don't think I remember any Shaman on my realm who was actually continuously resto spec, they were all Ele and healing like that during raids. I also healed a couple ZG's on my Shadow Priest. Most of the time it really was "anyone who can heal - do it!", especially in 40man where "setup" usually meant to fill 40 slots with whatever was available. Keep in mind this was mostly casual raiding of course, not clearing Naxx 40, but doing anything from 20man to T2 content.

I started playing WoW right before MC was released, so by the time I was 60 on my Paladin, people were already into BWL. I healed 95% of the time on my Pally, but for 5 mans and some raids I would do some offtanking as needed. I really don't remember seeing many specs that weren't cookie cutter or the set role: IE Warrior tanks, Druid/Pally/Priest/Shaman healers, etc. I remember the first time I saw a Boomkin running around Ironforge and I asked some of my friends "wtf is that?"

I didn't touch Horde in Vanilla unless it was just to see some of the starting areas, so I never really saw any Shamans unless it was out in the world or during a BG. If I recall even then the Shamans I saw were all Resto. I do remember seeing a Shadow Priest once in WSG and I thought to myself "wow, that looks really cool." I had no idea what a Shadow Priest did at the time though.

I didn't for raiding, but on my Paladin I had some odd setups for like 45 minute Baron runs and such. I would have enough tanking stuff that I could off tank if we pulled too much but would still have lots of Holy to help heal so the Priest we ran with could Mana up without us stopping ( Would judge and heal while he wanded and tossed a few things if it was just absolutely needed). I didn't personally, but I knew lots of Pally's that healed as Ret so they wouldn't have to Respec for PvP.

Its one of the few times I do miss in Vanilla. Before everyone had gear and we started specializing more and more, hybrids truly were hybrids.

My raid was full of ferals, dps warriors, shadowpriests and an unusually large cacophony of enhancement shamans(like 5 or 6). Yeah we had plenty of dps classes dpsing if you can call it that. Stuck in MC forever...on my druid as resto. I eventually got pissed and rolled a rogue alt which allowed me to have some fun outside of raids, I was going feral in dungeons and whatnot and very occasionally in the core but really hybrids were absolutely hamstrung in this stage of the game. No gear support unless you were rather far into the content which was a lot more of a feat than it is now.

I agree with Cathaia there was a lot of gearing but not speccing for roles that was going on back then too, it was a lot more viable than it is now. Most of our dps warriors needed to tank at some point in the evening but they never specced for it. Kind of miss that, for all the shortcomings.

BM orc hunter in vanilla. i didnt find out about respeccing for a while after being 60.
human ret paladin in TBC. leveled as prot until 65, then went ret in nagrand with hellreaver. stayed as ret for most of BC. dabbled in tanking kara/heroics and healing some T5 content.
dks released finally for wrath and it was the class i was waiting for.
dk ever since.

Back then I couldn't decide what class I wanted to paly it took me from 6 months after the game released (when I got my own account, up until that point I used a buddys that was Deployed.) to 2 weeks after BC was released to actually hit 60. I got my Hunter to like 35 got sick of it and started a rogue, I leveled him to 41 and went back to my hunter and leveled him to 70. I never raided Vanilla, but I did raid all of BC as a BM hunter. After they fucked them up in Wrath I never touched him again after that.

Feral/Guardian still benefit from Strength and Agility for attack power. Agility's value didn't increase until TBC and it wasn't until Cataclysm that Strength got nerfed from 2 ap : 1 str to 1 ap : 1 str if I'm remembering correctly. Beginning of Cata the strength to gloves enchant was the best enchant for Feral until the Strength nerf.